


waste my youth chasing kites

by nirav



Series: a brighter forecast, where new winds will blow [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-09 15:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8897887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: in which alex finds her father, puts her family back together, and finds a few more pieces along the way





	1. keep safe, don’t let me happen too late

  
_keep safe, don't let me happen too late_   
_keep safe, be brave, i am on my way_

 

 

It’s been seventeen months and six days since Kara saw Alex’s father at Cadmus, and Alex has gained a girlfriend, lost two DEO team members, gained a trio of idiot brothers in Winn and James and Mon-El, lost a girlfriend, and fractured more bones than she can count in fruitless raids on Cadmus facilities.

It’s been seventeen months and six days and this time Alex is on track to lose more than a team of her friends to the bullets breaking into the wall they’re hiding behind.  Vasquez’s right arm is tied sloppily against her torso by a makeshift sling and tourniquet and James’ breath is ragged and shallow from inside his helmet, the dents in the lead covering his abdomen a surefire indicator of broken ribs.  Mon-El’s leg is broken.  J’onn is still standing, barely.  He grabs Alex by the shoulder when she tries to stand enough to peer over the barrier and yanks her back, standing instead, and takes a bullet through one shoulder.

Cadmus still uses bullets.  Somehow.  They have lasers and EMP grenades and biological weapons, but they’re still rattling off bullets at her team. It’s almost quaint.

Alex pulls him back, jaw clenching and hands shaking as she rips bandages and shoves them over the wound.  Kara is back at the DEO, unconscious and recovering under the UV lamps to recover from taking a Kryptonite shot in the side earlier in the fight when she saw Jeremiah-- Alex’s _father,_ she’d finally seen him, alive and breathing and fighting at Kara’s side as best he could-- crumple under a powerhouse punch to the jaw.  She’d had just enough strength to grab Jeremiah and deposit him-- unconscious, battered, bruised, and breathing-- with Alex’s team before she slammed through the wall, flying to freedom at Alex’s and J’onn’s insistence before her strength waned.  

A confirmation came through Alex’s radio just before a scrambling signal had gone out and blocked their comms in the middle of trying to transmit their position for backup.  They’re going to die in here and she won’t get her father out but her sister, at least, will live to fight another day.  If they don’t all die in the next five minutes, she’ll be the best chance they have.

Alex blinks rapidly, shaking her head against the possibility of Kara losing her family again, of her mother losing her father again.  She hands her rifle to Vasquez in exchange for her pistol and cocks it.  J’onn grabs at her arm, weak and wavering, and she pulls free with one sharp jerk, shakes her head again, and nods once at Vasquez.  

The cover fire is just enough, barely, to give her space to sprint to the left, and she skids across broken concrete behind an overturned lab table.  She has a flash of open lines to fire at and pops off three of the men firing at her team before ducking back down.  The table shudders at her back as the bullets slam into it.  It won’t hold for long.

Vasquez throws another volley of fire across the room and the Cadmus men duck; Alex doesn’t have much of a clear shot anymore but she tries anyways, rattling through half of her bullets and managing to drop two more before they return fire.  The table rings and creaks and bullets start to punch through.  A shotgun blast sounds and scattershot rips through the table, slamming into her vest and breaking through skin.  

She’s just transferred the gun to her left hand, cradling her right against her vest, when the wall across from her blows in and she’s thrown back from her cover and her helmet cracks against the wall behind her.

There’s a familiar voice, somewhere in all of it, just before she loses consciousness.

 

* * *

 

Alex wakes up to the familiar ceiling of the DEO medical bay.  She has time to blink, once, twice, three times, before the pain in her skull radiates all the way down her spine.  Everything hurts, sharper with each breath, and she can’t even bite back on a groan because her teeth hurt, somehow.

“Hey.”  Kara whooshes over to her side.  “Careful, don’t--”

Alex muscles herself up into a sitting position and grunting when her right arm almost buckles under her.  

“--push it,” Kara finishes.  She smiles, just a little bit, and Alex’s chest aches a little bit less.  “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got blown up,” Alex says.  “Are you--”

“I’m okay,” Kara says, levitating a few inches off the floor. “Good as new.”

“Did--” Alex’s voice stops somewhere in her throat, the question too heavy to put to words, and Kara takes her left in hand tightly.  

“He’s okay,” she says.  “Eliza is with him.”

“It’s really him?” Alex says after a long moment.  Seventeen months and six days of waiting, of trying, of losing people and losing chances, of nightmares of a cyborg version of her father, press on her shoulders, and her hand shakes in Kara’s grip.

“It is,” Kara says quietly.  “But just in case, he’s agreed to stay in containment for a while until they can run tests.  Eliza already basically moved in with him.”

“I have to--” Alex moves to step off the table and Kara moves back, just enough to catch her when her legs buckle and vision swims.  

“Slow,” Kara says.  “Come on.”  She could carry Alex, easily, so easily, her body so fragile and weak and human, but instead she just wraps an arm around her waist and hitches Alex’s arm up over her shoulders.  Alex’s ribs resist the movement and rips in her skin from the shotgun blast burn, but she swallows it and grips tighter to Kara’s shoulder.

They walk past Vasquez, who’s up and talking, her arm in a cast and sling; Mon-El, who waves from his hospital bed, leg in traction; J’onn, who falls in step at her other side and takes her other arm, takes some of her weight off of Kara.  

It’s a long walk to the containment cells, but Alex can hear her mother’s voice, her _father’s_ voice, the two of them together, and she pushes the door open.

 

* * *

 

It’s hours later when Eliza insists Alex rest, and Kara and Jeremiah-- her _father_ , home again, real and whole and smiling at her like he did the first time she asked to use his telescope-- gang up on her.

Kara helps her back to her room, walking close but not holding her up.  

“How did we get out?” Alex speaks softly, soft enough that only Kara will hear her as they move through the command center.

“Backup came through,” Kara says after a moment.  

“Who-- we were in a bunker underground, that place was a maze, how could anyone even find us to send-- did you--”

“It wasn’t me,” Kara says.  “It was Lucy.”

“Lucy?” Alex stumbles to a stop. “What?”

“Yep,” Kara says.  Her mouth tilts up on one side. “She was already heading to the Cadmus site when I got out-- which we’re going to talk about, for the record, because that was bull-- and you know she’s been-- she just-- I told her the general area where we went in and where I’d come out and she just _knew_.  She was there in like ten seconds.”

“Is she okay?  What about her team? Are--”

“She’s going to be okay,” Kara says, and her mouth tilts back down.

“Kara,” Alex says sharply, pulling to a stop.

“She’s a little banged up, but not badly.  Can you please just sleep?  You need to rest--”

“Kara,” Alex says again.

Kara heaves out a sigh.  “Med bay three, she’s in the first room.”

Alex heads off towards the other medical bay, steps shuffling slowly even as she tries to move quickly.  

“You have to rest after this, okay?” Kara calls after her.  “Or I’m telling Eliza.  And Jeremiah!”

Alex ignores her and pushes her way past one of the medical teams.  The medical bay is almost full, mostly with walking and talking injured soldiers she doesn’t recognize, and Alex slides past them all until she finds the room she’s looking for and shoves the door open.  It moves more easily than she expected and cracks against the wall behind it, and Lucy’s whole body jerks from where she’s sitting on the bed.

“Jesus, Danvers,” she mutters.  “Ever heard of _knocking_? Or even just not busting in like you’re going into a war zone?  I could have--”

Alex ignores her and walks across the room and, without preamble or preface, hugs Lucy as tight as she can.

“Oh,” Lucy says into Alex’s shoulder.  One arm comes up around Alex’s back and curls up towards her shoulders.  Alex’s legs shake under the exhaustion and the effort, but she holds onto Lucy tighter, even as her arms tremble.  “You know, you probably wouldn’t have been pumped full of birdshot if you’d just _waited_ , Danvers.”

“Thank you,” Alex mumbles into the side of Lucy’s neck.  Lucy’s words fall flat and unnoticed, and Alex holds on tight and says it again anyways. “Thank you.”

She pulls back after long seconds and clears her throat, focusing somewhere just past Lucy’s ear.  

“Kara told me what happened,” Alex says, clearing her throat once more.  “That you and your team--”

“Wouldn’t have had to come hail Mary you out of a Cadmus warehouse if you hadn’t charged in without recon or backup?”

“How did you know we were going in?”

“Susan called me when your intel came in this morning.”  Lucy raises an eyebrow and winces when blood leaks out of a cut on her forehead.  Alex busies herself with snapping gloves onto her hands and cracking open a suture kit.  Up close, the way Lucy’s breathing changes in impossible to miss, and Alex squints carefully at the wound as she cleans it.  “My team has reconned that site before, we had an understanding of the layout, more than you did.  I tried to get her to get you to wait--”

“She tried,” Alex says quietly.  Her hands are steady as she disinfects the wound, one holding Lucy’s head still with a gentle grip.  “I just-- we had to--”

“Jeremiah was there,” Lucy finishes for her.  “I get it.  We were following a lead in Nevada, so it wasn’t hard to get here.  Kara came out and her comms went back online right when we got there, so we knew where to look.”

“All done,” Alex says quietly, settling a bandage over the cut.  “What else?”

Lucy gestures at her right arm and sighs.  The sleeve is torn below the elbow, dried blood covering her forearm and staining the remainder of the black fabric darker.  Alex huffs out a sigh and sets to cutting away her sleeve.

“When are you going to start using the full Kevlar we have?  This would just be a bruise.”

“Matter of pride, Danvers,” Lucy says.  She winces as Alex pulls a sliver of shrapnel out of her elbow with tweezers.  “Besides, chicks dig scars, right?”

Alex rolls her eyes.  “Keep telling yourself that.”  She extracts a crumb of bunker concrete with a sharp flourish.

Lucy winks at her, dramatic and overt, and Alex steadfastly ignores her, focusing on cleaning her elbow.

“How’s your dad?” Lucy asks after long seconds of watching Alex work.  Alex pauses, hands hovering over Lucy’s arm.

“He’s alive,” she says.  “A little banged up, but he seems to be him.  But we can’t know--”  She cuts herself off and her hands start to shake.  Lucy’s hands reach out, pulling the swabs and tweezers away, and come back to hold onto her hands, soft and solid.  

“You got him back, Alex.”

“We can’t know--”

“From all the information we’ve gathered there’s nothing we’ve come across indicating Cadmus has had inclinations towards brainwashing or mind control, much less the capability.”  Lucy speaks quietly, her words measured and careful, and the even rhythm of her words settle the shake in Alex’s hands.  “And you know that, because I know you’ve read every single report we have on Cadmus a dozen times.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Lucy says.

“Thank you,” Alex says, not meeting Lucy’s eyes.

Lucy clears her throat and pulls her hands away from Alex’s.  “So.  How are things with the girl?”

“Oh.”  Alex blinks owlishly at her. “We broke up.  Few months back.”

“What?”

Alex shrugs, setting her attention back to Lucy’s arm.  “It was-- she broke up with me.  Kind of.  It was also kind of mutual.”

“Right, of course, that totally clears things up,” Lucy says.

Alex is quiet, focusing on Lucy’s arm.  Her hands are steady and methodical, holding Lucy’s arm still and pulling pieces of shrapnel from her elbow.  “The more she worked with us, the more she found out about-- she’s not a fan of the fact that we were holding the Fort Rozz escapees.  Or people like Maxwell Lord.”

“That’s her line?  Really?” Lucy huffs out a breath, annoyance creasing her forehead.  It jostles the arm Alex is bandaging and Alex glares at her.  “Sorry.”

“I know,” Alex says after a moment.  “She has a good point, and I’m don’t always agree with our containment approach, either, but I also-- I’m willing to compromise a lot to keep my family safe, and she’s not.  We don’t see eye to eye on it, and that was a dealbreaker for both of us.”

“Are you okay?” Lucy speaks quietly, her gaze focused on Alex’s hands as they clean the wound in her arm.

“I am now,” Alex says with a careful shrug.  “That’s the kind of difference we weren’t going to get past.  I was sad it ended, but I don’t know how much of that was me being sad about the relationship ending or about feeling like I-- I don’t know, proved her right about that whole fresh off the boat thing.”

“Oh, come on.”  Lucy rolls her eyes so hard her entire body moves, and Alex glares at her for moving her injured arm again.  “That was bullshit when she said it and it’s bullshit now and you didn’t prove anything except that you’re both stubborn as hell.”

“Gee, thanks,” Alex says drily.  She settles the bandage over Lucy’s elbow and tapes it in place.  “Keep it dry for 48 hours, and then come in so I can take a look at it.  I don’t want to stitch it, but you need to keep an eye out for infection.”

“Yes ma’am, Doctor Danvers,” Lucy says with a gratuitous wink.  She hops off the table, landing on her feet intentionally too close to Alex, and takes a long moment to ease her jacket back up onto her shoulders.  Alex clears her throat and takes a not at all subtle step back.

“Are you going back in after this?” Alex says.  

“Most likely,” Lucy says, pulling her hair free from her jacket collar.  She winces at the ache in her elbow.  

“It’s been almost two years,” Alex says.  “You need a break, your team needs a break.”

“Alex,” Lucy says with a sigh.  “We talked about--”

“Lucy, come on,” Alex says sharply.  The effort makes her wince, the cracks in her ribs unwilling to handle it, and Lucy’s jaw snaps shut at the way Alex pushes against her ribs, as if to hold them in place.  “You can’t be out in the field under radio silence forever.”

“Someone has to do it,” Lucy says.  “My team is solid, Alex, I don’t want to put someone else on this.”

“Your team is injured,” Alex counters.  “Because you came in to save mine and people got hurt.   _You_ got hurt.  You all need time to recover.”

“The more time we take off, the more time we give Cadmus to regroup and rebuild their organization--”

“You don’t have to do this alone!” Alex says.  “Jesus, Lucy, we have basically an army on a black budget here.  Use us.  Let us help.”

“I trust my team,” Lucy says, shoulders tight.

“That’s not what this is about, is it?” Alex says.  She moves to fold her arms over her stomach, but her whole body protests the movement and the stab of pain through her ribs makes her waver, swaying on her feet.  Lucy moves forward, hands finding Alex’s and guiding her into a chair, before either of them have realized she’s moved at all.

“You need to rest,” Lucy mutters.  “You’re dead on your feet.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Alex says, jaw clenched tight around the pain.  “Lucy, you don’t have to do this alone because of when you arrested J’onn and me.  You know that, right?”

Lucy doesn’t say anything, stepping back from Alex and huffing out a sigh.  “I’m going to go get a doctor--”

“Lucy,” Alex says quietly.

“I’m doing this,” Lucy says, just as quiet.  “Please just-- don’t.  Don’t try and stop me from fixing this.”

“You don’t have anything to fix,” Alex says.  “Even if you did, you would have more than made up for it already--”

“Alex, please.” The waver in Lucy’s voice is enough to cut through Alex’s words, and Alex falls quiet.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Alex says again.  “Please let us help.  Even if it’s just running backup and logistics.  Please just-- don’t disappear again.”

“That’s not fair.”  Lucy shrinks into her jacket, shoulders narrowing and spine curving as she steps further back from Alex.  “You don’t get to do that.”

“I’m not asking you to stay for me,” Alex says.  “I just-- Stay for you.  Because you need rest, and to spend time with your family, and because this isn’t just your fight.  We’re all fighting Cadmus, we all have something to lose.”

“We can’t just sit around while we lose the leads we already have, it took months to--”

“I’m not asking you to quit,” Alex says.  “Just-- Jesus, Lucy, let people help you.  For your team if not for yourself, even though you’re barely standing under your own power at this point.  Your entire team needs a rest.  Let us do the legwork for a little while.”

“I need to--”

“Your mother told me after Christmas that she owes me a favor,” Alex says, glaring across the room.  “I can scramble a jet to have her here in four hours so she can tell you to stay put.”

“What the-- are you _serious_?”

“You need to heal, Lucy, and if I can’t get you to stay then I’m willing to play dirty.”  Alex folds her arms over her chest-- carefully, gingerly, the posture significantly less powerful than she’d like-- and sets her jaw.  “Two weeks.  You can quarterback from here, you can even get Susan to work with your team, she’s the best we have and I know you would have taken her with you if you could.”

Lucy leans against the medical bed and pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes, inhaling slowly and exhaling even more slowly.  “Okay,” she says.  She stares at the wall behind Alex’s shoulder.  “Two weeks.”

“Two weeks,” Alex confirms.  One eyebrow quirks up.  “If you’re not sulky about it, I have some excellent whiskey I can share.”

Lucy lets out a groan heavy with frustration and marches out of the room, flipping her middle finger up over her shoulder when Alex shouts after her “Go home!”

 


	2. an end has a start

“You had literally one job,” Alex grumbles.  She pauses in moving the ice pack from Lucy’s wrist long enough to glare at her.  “Sit and heal and recover.  One job.  How is that so hard?”

“It’s not my fault?”

“What did you even _do_?”  Alex checks the tape holding the bandage on her elbow momentarily, pausing long enough to determine that the wound under the bandage is still clean and dry, and moves on to inspecting Lucy’s wrist.  “Besides break your damn wrist, that is.”

“It’s not broken,” Lucy says, pulling her arm back.  Alex’s eyebrow shoots up, and she keeps ahold of Lucy’s arm, poking at the inflammation around her wrist.  Lucy clenches her jaw and her whole body tenses at the pressure.  “Susan is a lot faster than she used to be, that’s all.”

“It’s possible that it’s a bad sprain, but that sure looks like a fracture to me,” Alex says.

“Yeah, well, you’re not a real doctor so leave me alone,” Lucy mutters.  

“You’ve been here for 24 hours and you broke your arm doing...what?  Sparring when you’re supposed to be healing?”

“It’s fine,” Lucy says, cradling her arm against her chest.

“You haven’t even left the DEO and slept in a real bed yet,” Alex says.  She pulls Lucy’s wrist free again and settles the ice pack back onto it.  “I’m going to get Sandra in here to look at it.  She can manage the x-rays and cast it if necessary.”

“It’s not broken.”

Alex sighs, finishing her email to the doctor and turning back to face Lucy.  “You need to rest.”

“I don’t have time--”

“You can’t take Cadmus down alone,” Alex snaps.  “You’re too smart to be this shortsighted, Lucy.  You’re one person and you have a great team, yes, but even that isn’t enough to take on an organization of this size alone.  You need backup, and support, and _rest_.”

“I’m fine,” Lucy says.  

There’s a knock on the door, and the doctor stands uncomfortably in the doorway, looking between the two of them.

“Hey, doc,” Lucy says, waving with her good arm.  “Can you tell her I’m fine?”

Alex rolls her eyes.  “Just-- put her in a cast if she needs it, please?”  She shoots a glare at Lucy and marches out of the room and down the hall to her office.

She waits a half hour, until Lucy will be done with her x-rays, and sends her an email on her DEO account with a link to a series of articles about the Guardian.  She waits another hour for Lucy’s arm to be put in a cast, and then sends her a text.

_James is the guardian fyi_

A loud “What the _fuck?”_ rings out from the medical bay, loud enough that Alex can hear it all the way down in her office, and she smirks at her phone and sends a text to James.

_Incoming Lucy.  She needs out of the office and i threw you under the bus because you owe me_

She shoves her phone back in her pocket and hits a button on her radio.  “Vasquez, I need a word with you.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy stalks into the CatCo office, right past the hideous pink statue in front of the elevators and all the way back past the desk Kara used to sit at, and stomps into James’ office.

“Hey-- what happened to your arm?” He hurries from behind his desk, hands reaching towards the cast on her wrist.

“What the _hell_ is wrong with you?”  Lucy shoves him back with a sharp hit to the chest with her uninjured hand.  “How did you get it in your head that you need to be some kind of _vigilante hero_ moron?”

“Lucy--”

“You could get killed, James!  Did you even stop to think about that?”

“I did, can you--”

“The world doesn’t need more people dressing up and fighting crime, it needs people like you who--”

“I have to do _something_ ,” he says sharply.  “I can’t just keep watching Kara and Alex and _you_ going out there risking your lives every day and not help!”

“You don’t have to be flouncing around on a motorcycle in a lead suit to help, James!”  At some point she’s started pacing, making circles around the couches in the office and gesturing wildly enough that her fractured arm aches with every jostle.

“That’s funny coming from you, seeing as you’ve been on some borderline suicide mission for two years risking _your_ life.”  He folds his arms over his chest and plants himself in front of her.  She glares up at his considerable height and despite his combative posture and the breadth of his shoulders towering over her, he’s looking at her the way he did years ago, when she would come home from an assignment with tired shoulders and a defeated set to her mouth, worried and sad and hands always ready to help her carry the load.  

“You’re mad at me,” he says, settling his hands carefully on her shoulders.  “I get that.  But you’re also spiraling on this Cadmus thing.  You have to step back.”

“I’m not spiraling,” Lucy says, jerking free from his hold.  

“When was the last time you saw your parents?” James crosses his arms back across his chest.  “Or Lois?  Don’t answer that one, actually, because it’s been nearly a year and a half, which I know because I _do_ talk to Lois and Clark all the time.  You haven’t been home in forever.  You’re so focused on finding Cadmus that you’re not taking care of yourself at all, and--”

“Don’t try and psychoanalyze me,” Lucy snaps.  “It’s not your strong suit.”

“We were together for years,” he throws back.  “I know you.  Don’t act like you’re not blaming yourself for Cadmus, even though that’s ridiculous because Cadmus has been around for _years_.”

“And how many people did I send there?” Lucy deflates abruptly, sinking down onto one of the couches.  “I didn’t think twice when Harper ordered it.  I don’t know how many of the people I interrogated when I was in wound up there and God knows what happened to any of them--”

“Lucy,” James says, sitting down across from her.  “You’re not responsible for anything Cadmus has done.  At all.”

“What if I am, though?  I don’t know what happened to any of the people I interrogated, when I was deployed, or back here, or working with my father.  What if there are more Jeremiah Danvers’ in Cadmus, with families who think they’re dead, because I sent them there?”

“You didn’t _send_ anyone there,” James says, loud enough that his assistant jumps minutely in her seat.  “You didn’t know, and when you did you broke rank and set up a rescue operation to get Alex and J’onn out.  You aren’t responsible for any of this, Lucy, none of it is your fault.”

“Some of it is,” Lucy says, rubbing at her forehead.  “They have to be stopped.”

“They do,” he says.  “But you don’t have to do it alone.  You’re the only one who thinks you have to do it alone.”

Lucy slumps back into the couch, arm cradled in her lap.  “I want to see this through.”

“Using the DEO’s resources won’t mean you’re not seeing it through,” James says.  “You know J’onn and Alex aren’t going to make you give up on control of the operation.  You can base out of the DEO and still run this.”

Lucy huffs out a sigh and drops her head back, staring up at the vaulted ceilings.  “Don’t think I’m ignoring this vigilante bullshit, by the way.  I’m just too tired to yell at you properly right now.”

“You could just also _not_ do that,” he suggests.  “Alex and Kara and J’onn already all yelled at me, you know.”

“Not the same,” Lucy says, still facing skywards.  “If Alex uses you to gang up on me, then I get to gang up on _you_.”

“That’s not really your best most logical argument.”  He smirks at her from the other side of the table, and she rolls her eyes.

“Your value judgments are useless because you dress up in a suit of armor in the 21st century and go gallivanting around like some medieval knight.  You could not have less of a leg to stand on.”

He starts to speak, and she blindly hurls a throw pillow at him, nailing him in the face.

 

* * *

 

Alex’s phone dings in the middle of running a panel on her father’s latest blood samples.

_Using my ex against me is a low blow_

She rolls her eyes at the phone and sends a short response

_Did it work?_

_YOU’RE A DICK_ is the only response she gets, and she smiles broadly into her empty office.

_When you’re done sulking i owe you some whiskey_

_You owe me several whiskeys and daily sparring so i don’t get fat and lazy_

_Yes ma’am major lane ma’am_

A series of angry emojis pops up on her phone.

_Do you have a place to stay in nc?  That isn’t the deo barracks?_

_I’ll find a hotel_

Alex hesitates for a long moment, thumbs hovering over the keyboard.

_I have a guest room_

_Probably a bad idea, danvers_

_It’s better than you staying in a hotel not sleeping because you’re working too much_

Minutes stretch past and Alex’s leg bounces rapidly under the table, fast enough that it starts to shake the collection of blood samples she’s working on.  She’s reaching for her phone to text Lucy again when it beeps

_Asshole_ is followed by _Can you cook because i miss good food_.

“Oh boy,” Alex mumbles.

_i won't disappoint you as you fall apart_   
_some things should be simple_   
_even an end has a start_

  



	3. come meet me when it's cleared

Lucy has two backpacks with her meets Alex to leave the DEO for the night.  One is stuffed with clothes, the other with two laptops and a stack of documents the size of a phone book.

“No,” Alex says sharply.  “Leave it.”

“I need to--”

“Rest,” Alex says, hands on her hips.  “Yes. You do.  Which means no working at home.  House rules.”

“Since  _ when _ do you not work at home every night?”

“Since now.  Hand it over.”

“Alex,” Lucy says, glaring at her and hiking the backpack higher on her shoulder.  The cast on her wrist stops her from moving as easily as she’d like and she scowls menacingly at it.

“It’ll all still be here tomorrow,” Alex says.  “You’re making me feel lazy.  Stop it.  Leave it here, let the swing shift analytics team take a run at it.  Fresh eyes would be helpful.”

“It’s not a calculus problem, they can’t just go in blind--”

“Actually, they can and they should.”  Alex folds her arms over her chest, hiding a wince at the twinge in her ribs, and levels a glare at Lucy.  “A new look might find new patterns and they’re less likely to do that if you give them instructions on what to look for.  They’re excellent at their jobs, so be nice and share your toys.”

“I hate you,” Lucy mutters even as she hands her backpack over to the babyfaced analytics officer hovering at her side.  Alex holds a hand out expectantly, gesturing to the other backpack, and Lucy grumbles before handing it over to her to carry.

“Get in line,” Alex says.  “Come on, I’m hungry and I want a shower.”

Lucy huffs out a sigh and follows Alex towards the exit. “So, you’re making me dinner, right?”

“I can make exactly four dishes and all four of them are pasta, so assuming you’re okay with pasta, then yes.  Otherwise you’re getting takeout.”

“Does the pasta come with alcohol?”

“The pasta comes with alcohol.”

“I  _ love  _ pasta.”

 

* * *

 

“You know,” Lucy says from her spot sitting at Alex’s counter and sipping on a glass of whiskey.  “I really do have excellent taste in whiskey.  This stuff is amazing.”

“Your modesty is astounding,” Alex says without turning away from the stove.  “Don’t drink all of it.”

“I would never,” Lucy says as she pours herself another glass.  “If I happen to pour too much it’s not my fault, the cast makes it hard to handle things.”

“Okay, well.”  Alex turns around and points at her with a wooden spoon.  “New rule: you have to replace whatever you drink.”

Lucy groans dramatically.  “Rude.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”  Alex throws one of the dishtowels at her.  “I don’t suppose you want to make yourself useful and cut some vegetables, do you?”

“Not even a little bit.  Why be useful when I can lounge around drinking good whiskey while a pretty girl makes me dinner?”

Alex drops the spoon she’s stirring with, the wood clattering against the rim of the pot, and clears her throat quietly.  

“Don’t think about things so much, Danvers,” Lucy says quietly.  She drums her fingers against the side of the whiskey bottle.  “I told you a long time ago that I don’t expect anything from you, but at a certain point of exhaustion it’s not fair to expect me not to acknowledge that I’m into you.  Doesn’t mean I’m hitting on you.”

“Right,” Alex mutters.  She picks the spoon back up and stirs the sauce again.  She clears her throat once more, the silence pressing on the back of her neck.  “Can you put on some music or something?”  She gestures vaguely over her shoulder, carefully not turning around, at the living room and the bookshelf full of vinyl records.

“Yeah,” Lucy says after a moment.  “Sure.”

An hour goes by without either of them speaking, the only sounds in the apartment Alex cooking and David Bowie in the speakers.

 

* * *

Alex wakes up in the middle of the night.  It’s not unusual, her body consistently pulled out of sleep by the quiet sounds of the building settling.  A sliver of light peeks through under the closed door to her bedroom, though, which is unusual.

She shuffles out into the living room, yawning, to see Lucy settled on a barstool, a tablet full of blueprints in front of her on the counter.

“It’s two AM,” Alex grumbles.  “Seriously?”

“Sorry,” Lucy says, sighing.  “Couldn’t sleep.”

“You have to sleep.”

“I will, I just...have a lot on my mind.”  Lucy picks at an edge on the plaster over her wrist.

“I’m shocked,” Alex says flatly.  She rubs at her eyes, yawning again, and makes her way into the kitchen to pull a pint of ice cream out of the fridge.  “Cookie dough, mint chip, or boring chocolate?”

“Surprise me,” Lucy says, smiling a tiny bit and turning off her tablet.  She yelps when Alex tosses a pint at her, ducking and barely catching it with one hand.  “Not what I meant and you know it.”

Alex settles on the barstool next to her, smiling serenely into the cookie dough ice cream.  She hands a spoon to Lucy.  “Half a pint and then you go to bed because I’m tired.  That’s the rule.”

“Is that a Danvers family rule?”

“That’s a my-sister-is-an-alien-who-hogs-the-ice-cream rule.”  Alex excavates a piece of cookie dough from the ice cream and pushes it to the side, setting to work to dig out another one.  Lucy watches, taking absent bites of mint chip and periodically fidgeting with her cast.

“Does it itch?”

“Not yet,” she says.  “I can get it off soon, though, right?”

“How would I know, I’m not a real doctor,” Alex says, pausing in her cookie dough search to elbow Lucy in the ribs as she parrots Lucy’s words from earlier.  “Is the cast what’s keeping you up?”

“Not really.”  Lucy shrugs, scooping up some ice cream and then letting it slide off the spoon and back into the carton.  “It’s quiet here.  Different quiet.  There aren’t six Army Rangers sleeping in the next room.”

“I’m not a Ranger, but I  _ am _ pretty good with a gun,” Alex says.  “Also, if it’s a security thing, would it make you feel better if I told you the building was vetted by the DEO before I moved in and all the walls out of the apartment are reinforced?”

Lucy raises an eyebrow at her, and Alex shrugs and turns back to her excavation.  “J’onn is protective.  I wasn’t going to argue.”

“That’s a first.”

“You’re hilarious,” Alex deadpans.

“It’s not a security thing,” Lucy says.  “It’s just been a long time, I guess.”

“Since what?”

“Since I didn’t fall asleep already thinking about the next watch shift.”

Alex is quiet, adding another piece of cookie dough into the pile she’s built up in the carton.  “I’m sorry,” she says after a long moment.  

“It’s not like it’s your fault.”

“I’m still sorry you thought you had to do this alone,” Alex says. She doesn’t look away from the ice cream in front of her.

“What are you even doing?” Lucy asks after a moment. She gestures towards the pile of cookie dough.

“Saving it for last.  Obviously.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Excuse you,” Alex says, glaring over at her and curling one arm protectively around the ice cream.  “Shush and eat your boring ice cream.”

“One, you gave me that boring ice cream from your own freezer.  Two, you’re completely screwing up the cookie dough to ice cream ratio.”  

“Just because you can’t appreciate--”

“Balance is important, Danvers, stop mutilating the ice cream and give it here.”

“Eat your own!” 

Lucy swipes at the cookie dough ice cream, getting a hand around it briefly before Alex yanks it away and leaps back from her stool.  “Stop that.”

“You stop it,” Lucy grumbles, hopping off her stool and advancing on the ice cream with her spoon outstretched.  “Calm down, weirdo, I’m not stealing your ice cream.”

Alex cradles the ice cream to her chest, glaring appraisingly at Lucy, who rolls her eyes.

“Dramatic much? Calm down, I’m going to fix your nonsense.”

“What non--”

“Will you be quiet, woman?  Good God, you’re impossible.”  Lucy levers a collection of the cookie dough pieces out of Alex’s pint and deposits them in hers, digging mint chip ice cream out and coming back up with a spoonful of mint chip and cookie dough.  She holds it out to Alex with an arched eyebrow.  

“Are you feeding me ice cream?”

“You’re useless at eating it on your own, so yes, I am.  Do you need me to turn it into an airplane to keep your interest?”  Lucy waves the spoon around in front of Alex’s face, ramping up to make airplane noises, and Alex grumbles out an “ _ Oh my God, stop it, _ ” grabs Lucy’s wrist, and guides the ice cream into her mouth.

“See?” Lucy says.  “Ratio is important.”

“No,” Alex mutters petulantly.  She doesn’t let go of Lucy, fingers wrapped loosely around her wrist and thumb pushed over her pulse, and Lucy inhales audibly and holds her breath for a moment, ice cream carton still cradled awkwardly in her injured arm and leaking cold into her ribcage.

With no discernible start, very abruptly, Alex moves forward and kisses Lucy.  Or Lucy moves forward and kisses Alex.  There’s no certainty or ownership to the movement and it doesn’t end until the spoon falls out of Lucy’s hand and clatters down on the hardwood floor.  Much like how it started, it ends sharply, with both of them stepping back and clearing their throats.

“We shouldn’t--” Alex starts just as Lucy mumbles “Bad idea.”

“Wait, bad idea why?” Alex says, brow creasing.  She licks at her lips and focuses somewhere over Lucy’s head and clears her throat again.

“We shouldn’t why?” Lucy counters.  She picks the spoon up and moves further away from Alex to settle it and the ice cream on the counter.  Her arms fold over her stomach, the cast in the way, and she stands with her back pressed against the counter, leaning back away from Alex.

“I asked first,” Alex mutters.

Lucy rolls her eyes and rubs at her eyes.  “Seriously?”

“Well, I did,” Alex says.  She takes a wide berth around Lucy back into the kitchen, dropping her spoon in the sink and depositing her ice cream into the freezer.  

“Because you’re, well, emotional and vulnerable because you just got you dad back, and you’re exhausted, and you broke up with your girlfriend recently, and you’re not into me,” Lucy starts, ticking reasons off on her uninjured hand.

“Wait, hold on.” Alex holds a hand up, squinting at Lucy for a moment.  “I’m not-- I mean, yes, I am emotional because of my dad, and I am exhausted, but I’m not looking for some rebound screw or anything like that.  Even if I was, I wouldn’t do that to you, because you’re my friend.”

“Right,” Lucy mutters, blowing out a loud breath.

“But also I’m not-- I’m not not into you.”

“What?” Lucy pushes her arms tighter around abdomen.  “What does that even mean?”

“It means...I don’t know,” Alex says, shrugging dramatically and pushing her hair out of her eyes.  “It means I like you.  I think I maybe have for a long time.”

“A long time,” Lucy echoes.  “As in--”

“Months.  Before my birthday,” Alex says quietly.  “Maybe Christmas.  When I was still with Maggie.”

“Oh,” Lucy says, faint and distant.  “You-- really?”

“Yeah,” Alex says with another shrug.  She slumps back against the fridge.  “I like you.”

“Oh,” Lucy says again.  “Then why did you say we shouldn’t?”

“Because this is the third time I’ve seen you in the last two years?  Because once you’re healed up you’re going to take your team and disappear back into radio silence until someone needs you to gallop in like a white knight again and then you’ll disappear again?”

“I don’t  _ disappear _ ,” Lucy starts.

“You do,” Alex says with a sigh.  “And I get it.  I don’t like it, but I get it.”

“So what does all of that mean?” Lucy doesn’t move from her spot on the other side of the counter.  “I like you and apparently you like me but too bad, a bunch of bigots who hate aliens are trying to murder people so we’re out of luck?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says.  She pushes at her hair again, hands moving from her hair to her waist to her pockets, unable to keep still.

“I’m not leaving right now,” Lucy says after a moment.  “I’m here.”  She finally moves, uprooting her feet from the floor and circling the counter to stand just out of Alex’s reach in the kitchen.

“Is this a bad idea?” Alex asks, even as she steps forward and her hands skim down the sides of Lucy’s arms and land on her hips.

“Probably,” Lucy mumbles.  Her uninjured hand curls up around the back of Alex’s neck and pulls her closer for a kiss.  Alex’s hands tighten on her hips and and pull until there’s no space between them, and Lucy pushes up on her toes and rakes her fingernails up along the back of Alex’s neck.

Alex shudders, pressing closer until she’s flush up against Lucy and spinning them around to walk Lucy backwards to the bedroom, fingernails digging into Lucy’s back and lips moving along her jaw.  Lucy fumbles with Alex’s shirt, the cast catching and dragging on the cotton, until she can work it up over Alex’s head and touch the constellation of healing scattershot wounds on her torso with gentle fingers.  

Lucy breathes out a curse when Alex bites down on her ear and they stumble through the open doorway.  She pulls at Alex’s shirt, turning them around and pushing Alex until she drops down onto the bed.  Blindly, she reaches back, fingertips finding the edge of the door, and swings it shut.

_overlooking our past, letting it go_   
_a brighter forecast where new winds will blow_   
_a storm is drawing near, come meet me when it's cleared_   
_waste my youth chasing kites_

 


End file.
